Wait, what? Tuesday? Yep. I’ve been experimenting with an app called Procreate for iPad. Among its many useful features is a really neat one: it records every brush stroke as you draw, so you can make a video when you’re done. I did this one a little bit ago, but I figured I could also experiment with embedding YouTube videos in posts while I let you folks have a look:

Tiny little something to say thanks for understanding about the hurricane hiatus! Have a good week!

Hey there! Got a glass of wine (it’s not the first of the day, is all I’m going to say) and Washed Out is playing on Pandora. Let the briefings begin:

Art. Fair warning – I’m going to be trying some new things with color. Lovely wife and I were discussing improvements to the art, and I was going on and on about composition and how boring the shoulders up, profile or straight on thing was, and she said while she thinks I should definitely work on things like that, there are other aspects of the art that could be tightened up a bit, too – my coloring has always leaned more toward the Sunday morning newspaper look vice the Image Comics look (Stepan Sejic is a great example of what I’m working toward). So please to forgive if the coloring looks excessively dark or is jarringly different over the next few weeks.

Comments. Decided against Disqus, at least for the time being. No sense in changing what folks are used to when it’s six of one, a half dozen of the other to me. It’s not yet become a pain in the ass to deal with the assorted SEO and jewelry spammers, so I’m good to go as long as you are. Also, I’m pretty sure there are extra ads in there somewhere with Disqus. meh.

Rankings. Spent all of last month and most of this month in the top 100 at TopWebComics and the Webcomics List – can’t thank you guys enough for taking the time to vote, even when circumstances hosed up my schedule! Which reminds me…

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words and whatnot from folks while the Hurricane Matthew hiatus was on – you’re all awesome, and you make me want to do better each week so’s you have a reason to keep coming back.

Morning, folks. Hope everybody who had to deal with the storm came out the other side okay.

We did fine – neighbor lost a tree, and the entire area’s without power, but we were profoundly lucky, especially considering what the folks just a few miles away in downtown Saint Augustine are dealing with. If you’re in a position to do anything, the Red Cross would gratefully accept it.

So we’re all okay and safe and dry and stuff, but the problem is there hasn’t been power for a while, and the weekends are the time I usually spend drawing the comics, and I sorta burned through the small buffer I had traveling last weekend. At this point, even if the power came back on right now you’d get a rushed, crappy comic tonight and two more rushed, crappy comics through the week. As you know, friendly reader, I really, really hate doing rushed, crappy comics.

What this means is I’m going to be taking this week off to get good comics drawn once the power comes back on. I’m really sorry to be doing this just as you folks are getting Middleways a regular spot in the top 100 – I know I always sorta grumble when my regular reads have to take a short break.

Thanks for understanding, and I’ll be back with page 257 on Sunday, October 16.

Looks like hurricane Matthew is going to be a little more of a pain than previously thought – it looks pretty likely that I won’t have the Friday update ready until after the storm moves on and things return to something like normal.

I want it noted for the record that it took a bloody category 4 storm to put me off schedule.

Take care and have a good weekend,

B

Edit: HAH! Updated anyways! With any luck, all will be well by the Monday update!

So I’m watching Hurricane Matthew’s path on the National Hurricane Center, and it looks like it’ll be passing fairly close to the old home town – not close enough to be actively dangerous, I don’t think, but close enough that there’s a non-zero chance we’ll lose power on Thursday or Friday.

What this means to you, friendly reader, is that Friday’s update may be later than usual depending on whether or not I a) have power to draw with or b) have an internet connection to upload the comic with.

Just wanted to give a heads up, ’cause you know I hates to be late. If you live in the path of the storm, take care and you have my best wishes for an uneventful few days.